When Geniuses Fall In Love
by SnoOza
Summary: Genius equals smart, right? Genius equals will not do stupid things such as acting like your crush’s crush in the name of love, right? Wrong. ShikaIno
1. Cue Genius

Disclaimer: Naruto = not mine.

**When Geniuses Fall In Love**

_Chapter 1: Cue Genius_

Nara Shikamaru had an IQ of above 200. He was the best strategist Konoha village had ever seen and there wasn't a game of Go he couldn't win. Hey, he even had a special pose for when he was contemplating! In short, Shikamaru was the smartest dude you would ever find if you upended the whole world through a Smart-O-Meter filter. In shorter, Shikamaru was just smart.

Yes, Shikamaru might have been extremely intelligent, but when it came to matters of the heart he was hopeless. There is a reason why the heart is a separate organ from the brain, you know. In fact, the brain…but never mind, this is not a story expositing the differences between the mind and the heart. This is a story extolling the woes of Shikamaru's romantic life and the reasons for his current ridiculous predicament.

Hear ye now the famous words of Shikamaru.

"This is so troublesome…"

"Stop saying that! You gotta act the part" Chouji said, trying to separate Shikamaru's clump of hair in search of something remotely resembling bangs.

"…"

"That's much better," Chouji said, tugging a few random locks of hair to form the fringe and squinting critically at Shikamaru's new hairstyle in the mirror. "You think this looks like Sasuke?"

Shikamaru raised his eyebrows. He looked at his squinty eyes, the eyelids so close they seemed almost slits, the long, thin lips and somewhat non-existent flat nose.

He tried. He really did. "Well…we...both…have two eyes," Shikamaru finally hit on a similarity.

Chouji sighed and shook his head. He retrieved a bag of chips from a pocket on his clothes somewhere and popped it open, stuffing the chips unreservedly into his mouth. "And they call you the genius," he said in a muffled voice.

"Hey, you be the genius then!" Shikamaru said in annoyance.

"I already am. See, I'm helping you in your transformation into a hot Sasuke look-alike right now."

"Um wait, backtrack a minute. In _what_ way does that make you a genius?"

"Well, _duh._" Chouji rolled his eyes, popping more chips into his mouth. "You're a genius, you can figure it out."

Shikamaru blinked. Now, he was pretty sure Chouji was committing the logically fallacy of red herring, because that sentence hadn't made sense. Neither had the one before. And…in actual fact, this whole situation didn't make sense.

"Did you say _hot Sasuke look-alike_?" Shikamaru suddenly realised.

"Uh, cool Sasuke look-alike?" Chouji offered.

"When did I ever say I wanted to become like that Uchiha kid?"

"Do you have short-term memory or what?" Chouji asked in irritation. "You practically said so just now, while we were playing go."

"All I said was that I wanted Ino to like me! And that was only because you tricked me!" Shikamaru argued, sitting down on his bed in a huff, a scowl on his face.

"It's too bad if a so-called genius gets tricked so easily." Chouji scoffed.

"What is your obsession with me being a genius?" Shikamaru ground out, his scowl deepening.

"Hey, maybe I have a deep-rooted pathological jealousy of your intelligence that has plagued me since young," Chouji said breezily. He finished the last of his potato chips and dumped it into the dustbin beside the window.

"Yeah, right," Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "Can we go back to playing go?"

He looked longingly towards the board where the pieces were haphazardly arranged, still waiting for them to finish the game they had stopped halfway.

"No!" Chouji said, sounding aghast. "We have to help you snag Ino! And this is so much more fun than go." He added the last part in under his breath.

"What?" Shikamaru asked suspiciously.

"Uh, come, we must work on your expression!"

Shikamaru glared at him.

"There we go! You've got uh the 'swoon-worthy glare' down pat, now, guess we'll go on to 'amazingly hot pensive stare'," Chouji said, consulting a rumpled piece of note-paper he produced from somewhere on his person.

"What the hell?" Shikamaru said. He snatched the paper from Chouji and ticked down the list of words. "These are all quotes from Ino about Sasuke!"

Shikamaru sounded amazed. "Have you been planning this?" He asked threateningly.

"No, of course not, what would make you think _that_?" Chouji blinked his eyes. Shikamaru forced himself to count to ten.  
  
"What makes you think acting like Sasuke will make Ino like me anyway? This is a stupid idea!"

"Of course it will! Ino likes Sasuke, therefore if you act like Sasuke, Ino will like you. _Duh,_" Chouji rolled his eyes.

Shikamaru stared blankly. There had to be a logically fallacy somewhere in there, he was sure of it. But then again, it did sort of, possibly, maybe, plausibly make some sense. After all if Ino Sasuke = love, and Shikamaru = Sasuke, then Ino Shikamaru = love too!

"Ah, brilliant!" Chouji's voice interrupted his mathematical calculations. "You've almost go the 'amazingly hot pensive stare' down, you just need to try to open your eyes a bit more. You have to emulate Sasuke's uh, 'smouldering black orbs'."

Then again, Shikamaru ≠ Sasuke. "You're kidding," Shikamaru said flatly. "The last time my mother tried to force my eyes to open wider, our entire rack of plates was destroyed."

"Cool! What did your eyes do?" Chouji asked in awe.

"Nothing. My mother knocked over the rack while she was hyperventilating with laughter," Shikamaru deadpanned.

"Really? Let me see!" Chouji said in excitement, advancing on Shikamaru, who hastily got off the bed and moved away.

"You try and I'll kunai you to the moon," Shikamaru threatened.

"Aww," Chouji said sadly. "I guess we could work on your speech. You're about as reticent as him, which is good, but you have to learn to be more smug and insulting."

"Okay, how about this. "'Dobe, you suck. Get away from me so I can carry on practising to be beautifully melancholic.'"

"Wonderful!" Chouji cheered. "You're really getting into the spirit of things!"

"Uh, I was just kidding," Shikamaru said.

"Yeah, but you know that underneath it all, that's just what Sasuke is thinking!"

Shikamaru raised his eyebrows. "Shouldn't I have more cause to hate Sasuke than you?"

"Yeah, but you're kind of apathetic that way, so I'm feeling all your emotions for you."

Shikamaru felt his eyebrows strain from trying to rise beyond their usual limit. Definitely a logical fallacy there, he thought.

"Alright," Chouji said. "Now, next on our agenda we have to –"

"Whoa, wait a minute," Shikamaru interrupted. "We have an _agenda_? Since when? You planned this all, didn't you? You have some inane diabolical scheme to match-make me and Ino right?"

Chouji blinked. "Cool. You haven't said that many words at one go in…well, a long time."

"It's go right!" Shikamaru suddenly yelled. "It's because you hate go so much! Fine! We'll play shougi instead!"

Chouji's mouth, for once not to stuff food, dropped open. "Uh, Shikamaru, I'm not doing this because I hate go…much. It's because I care for your emotional welfare! You're starved of feelings, Shikamaru! You have to learn to get in touch with your inner romantic soul!" And shougi really isn't that much a better alternative than go, he added silently.

Shikamaru snorted, having recovered from his previous outburst. "The psychiatrist talk doesn't jive with me either."

"Oh come on," Chouji said, getting exasperated. "At least you're being proactive this way. You can't just like Ino but sit around and do nothing!"

"Um, Chouji, that was the plan."

Chouji rolled his eyes. "You're going to regret not ever trying, Shikamaru! After all, what's the harm? The worst is that she'll think you're turning into a nutcase."

"And that's not bad at all, sure," Shikamaru said sarcastically.

"Hey, that's why I said 'worst', you know," Chouji said patiently.

"But…" Shikamaru sighed, deciding it was way too troublesome to explain to Chouji exactly what was wrong with his word phrasing.

"Okay, now we have to go and search for suitable clothing," Chouji said, eyeing Shikamaru's outfit critically. "That mesh shirt _definitely_ has to go."

"Are you insulting my fashion sense?" Shikamaru asked in some annoyance.

"No, I'm complimenting Sasuke's."

Shikamaru debated whether or not to strangle Chouji, but decided funerals were definitely sky high in the troublesome range.

"So let's go now!" Chouji said, finishing the last of his potato chips and tossing them into Shikamaru's dustbin. He walked to the door.

"Now?" Shikamaru asked in surprise.

"No time like the present!" Chouji said chirpily.

Shikamaru winced. "Why're you so energetic today? Has Ino rubbed off on you?"

"It's called the power of love!" Chouji said loudly, pumping his fist in the air for good measure.

The door suddenly flew open, narrowly missing Chouji. Shikamaru's parents stood at the doorway, staring expectantly into the room.

"Who's in love?" Shikato asked, an excited look on his face.

"Shikamaru," Chouji required with equal enthusiasm, pointing his finger at the horrified looking Shikamaru.

"Oh, with that uh, what's-her-name, Hinata, right?"

Chouji and Shikamaru blinked.

"No, Ino, dear," Shikamaru's mother said.

"How do you know?" Shikamaru asked accusatorily.

Shikamaru's mother shook her head and gave an expression which clearly said Mothers _Always_ Know, Dear, Cos We Rule! Shikamaru was a bit fuzzy on the last part though. Even after spending most of his life with very scary women, it wasn't all that easy to decipher their coded looks.

"Oh, yes, Ino. You're going to chase after her then, aren't you?" Shikato grinned broadly.

"How do you know?" Shikamaru asked accusatorily. For some peculiar reason, he felt this sense of déjà vu.

"Of course I do, I did the very same at your age!" Shikato smiled fondly.

"What? Is that how you ended up with mother?" Shikamaru asked in surprise. "But I thought that was because you had this problem with –"

"Uh, no need to repeat the details!" Shikato interrupted hurriedly. "Of course I didn't meet your mum that way, I was going after this other damsel, she was really pretty, had these huge violet eyes and –"

Shikamaru's mother coughed. _Very_ loudly.

"Oh, but that was a long time ago," he finished quickly.

"Then did you get her?" Chouji asked in some interest.

"No!" Shikato said cheerfully. "That's how I ended up with Shikamaru's mother!"

This time he received a hefty thwack on the head from his wife.

"Oww…" he muttered, rubbing his head ruefully.

"What!" Chouji said, realising that Shikamaru was staring at him _very_ meaningfully.

"Oh! You want to go already!" Chouji said in a burst of inspiration.

Shikamaru nearly fell off his bed in shock. It wasn't possibly that someone could be so pigheaded, right? Right?? Shikamaru thought somewhat desperately. He couldn't lose faith in humanity. He –

Shikamaru suddenly felt himself being dragged to his feet and revived from the inner recesses of his mind to take in the fact that he was being dragged out of his room by Chouji, his parents tailing them in anticipation.

"Bye!" Chouji called cheerfully as he hauled a somewhat uncomprehending Shikamaru out of his house. "We're off to get Shikamaru a girlfriend now!"

"Good luck!" Shikamaru's parents replied, waving enthusiastically at their retreating backs. Shikamaru swore he could see his mother dab her eyes. This was Not Normal.

Shikamaru shook his head, trying to rid his friend's grip on his arm. "Uh, Chouji, maybe –"

"Oh my gosh, this is fate."

"Uh, Chouji? Have you been seeing Neji recently or something?"

"No, it's Ino!"

"Yeah, I realise you must have been meeting her a lot too, your enthusiasm is starting to scare me."

"No, it's Ino! Here!" Chouji said, gesturing towards the girl who was just walking out of a grocery store, several bags in her hand.

"Oh well, guess we'll be walking this way then," Shikamaru said and turned promptly around, not wanting Ino to have a chance to rile at him about random stuff some more. Oh, and also not to see the ridiculous hairstyle he had on at the moment.

"No, no," Chouji said, swivelling Shikamaru around again. "This is perfect! You can go up and Sasuke her now!"

"You're even worse than Sasuke's fangirls, you know that? You just made him a verb."

"That doesn't matter!" Chouji hissed. "Now go on!" He gave Shikamaru a push which barrelled him a good two metres forward.

He sighed and looked towards Ino. He guessed it wouldn't really hurt. Uh wait, did he just say that? Damn, he must be falling for Chouji's devious logical fallacies! He looked back at Chouji, who was making urgent shooing motions at him. Ah, but it would be more troublesome to convince Chouji he didn't want to uh, 'Sasuke' Ino than to actually do the deed. There, that reason felt so much more right.

He shook his head and made his way up to Ino. Now, how should I do this? Shikamaru pondered. An effective entrance would pave the way for an easy 'Sasuke', and give him less trouble too. Therefore, he should try to appear to Ino as much as Sasuke as possible upon first meeting her, then he would not have to impress his renewed Sasuke attributes so strongly onto her later.

Shikamaru wondered how he should call her attention to him. Sasuke hardly talked to anybody, and obviously would not randomly say hi to people on the streets even if he knew them, and much less if he knew the person was fanatically obsessed with him.

I guess I'll just have to do the classical Sasuke, Shikamaru thought (oh no, now even I have promoted him from a pronoun to noun). He stationed himself in Ino's line of path.

"…"

"…"

"…!"

Ino walked right into him.

**-to be continued-**

I've always wanted to write a humour/romance fic, so yay. :) I fear my humour skills are rusting away in the prevalence of all my angst. Hope you didn't think so!

Till the next chapter,

&SnoOza


	2. Wit

Sorry, I forgot to mention in the previous chapter that the story is somewhat OOC, so yup, it is. I also forgot to thank my wonderful beta Kaka-C, thanks for this chapter and the previous one!

Disclaimer: Naruto = not mine.

**When Geniuses Fall in Love**

_Chapter 2: Wit_

This was not cool. This was not remotely cool. In fact, this was _really_ not cool. But wait, hadn't he just said that? Whatever it was, it was _not_ at all cool to expend so many brain cells to come up with the perfect plan, then to have more brain cells killed when you were knocked down by the subject of your perfect plan, and then _even more_ brain cells brutally slayed in the subsequent tongue-lashing from the subject of your perfect plan, which obviously could _not_ have been that perfect after all. You know what? It was just _not_ cool, period.

"What in the _world_ did you think you were doing, Nara Shikamaru?" Ino yelled as she scrambled around trying to pick up stray apples and other groceries which had fallen from her bags when she had bumped into him.

Shikamaru, tuning out the rest of her ranting and stooping to pick up an apple, was about to tell her exactly what he thought he was doing, when he realised that was exactly what he should not be doing. He had to stick to the plan. He stared at the apple in his hands. Not good. Sasuke would never pick up fallen apples, his nose was probably stuck too high in the air for him to see.

Shikamaru adroitly hid the apple as Ino straightened up after retrieving the last of her groceries.

"…"

Ino stared suspiciously at him.

"Shikamaru, did you steal my apple?" she asked somewhat dubiously.

"…"

"You can stop pretending, I can see my apple behind your back, idiot," Ino snapped. "Give it back."

Damn, Shikamaru thought. Why was she so obsessed with her apple? Wasn't she going to notice that he wasn't speaking anytime soon? Not that she hadn't noticed, but she was _ignoring_ the fact that he wasn't speaking. Okay, so it wasn't that hard to ignore the fact that a person wasn't speaking, because if the person wasn't speaking, then there was nothing to notice and thus the lack of speaking could be easily ignored! Ugh, he was starting to make little sense even to himself.

"Hello? Are you even listening to me?" Ino said. "Are you sure you're quite alright? If you wanted an apple to eat you could _ask_ me, you know. Stealing is inexcusable in itself, and to steal from your _friend_ is even worse, especially over something as trivial as an apple."

"…" Shikamaru glared desperately at her.

A slight distance away, Chouji watched in amusement at the interaction between his two team-mates. He could hear their conversation, or lack of, especially from Shikamaru's side, where he was standing, and it was, there was no other word for it, priceless. Man, this is even better than food, Chouji thought in delight, and as if recalling him to his loyalties, his stomach rumbled. Maybe not, then, Chouji reconsidered, as he opened another packet of potato chips and began eating it as silently as possible. But it sure went great with food, he thought with a grin, hearing Ino's yell of "Stop glaring at me stupidly like that!".

Shikamaru gave up. Ino was obviously not getting the message though his expressive and emotive silence. He would have to resort to the minimal, clipped sentences Sasuke occasionally deigned to bless the world.

"Ino – uh –" Wait, Sasuke didn't call Ino by her first name, he suspected Sasuke didn't even know Ino's name. Shikamaru wanted to run off and bang his head into his go board in the hope that he would regain his intelligence (though that'd more likely just increase the brain cells death count tenfold). He'd _never_ been so badly prepared for anything in his life before. This was entirely ridiculous. He always thought things through before taking any action (normally it resulted in inaction, but that was not the point), and for him to rush headlong into this stupidity was abnormal. Okay, he could still salvage this. What would Sasuke call Ino, perchance he ever actually decided she was worth his superior existence to talk to?

"Right, mindless fangirl, you're too noisy," Shikamaru said.

There was a funny choking sound and a crash, and as Shikamaru stared past Ino's shoulder in the direction of the noise, he swore he saw Chouji hurriedly disappearing into the door of a shop. His eyes narrowed. What? Had he said something wrong?

"What did you say?" Ino practically hollered in his face.

Shikamaru blinked. He could practically hear his brain cells screaming in tortured agony as they expired.

"Right, mindless fangirl, you're too noisy," Shikamaru repeated.

"I heard that the first time!"

"Then why did you ask?"

"It was a rhetorical question!"

"Um," Shikamaru said cleverly. He scratched his head. Man, he could never understand Ino.

"Why are you insulting me? Why are you acting weirdly? What's wrong with your hair anyway? And give me back my apple!" Ino advanced towards him. She looked ready to blow a fuse. Or many.

"What apple?" Shikamaru tried to reply innocently, holding his hands up to ward off the increasingly scary Ino.

Both of them stared at the apple in Shikamaru's hands.

"Oh, uh, this is mine…from home," Shikamaru said lamely. "You have no proof!" He continued in desperation.

Ino rolled her eyes. "Are you sure you didn't knock your head into a pole…many times? That was a really, _really_ bad excuse."

Shikamaru scowled. This was all Chouji's fault. He'd make Chouji pay. Yes, he'd _slaughter_ Chouji in the next go game they played, that'd show Chouji. Even if Chouji didn't seem to show much emotion whenever he lost at go…but never mind.

Ino continued, "I really couldn't be bothered if you wanted to become a kleptomaniac, but man, what was up with going all Shino on me and skulking around wordlessly?"

Shikamaru blinked. Shino? _Shino_? Didn't he seem like someone else? You know, like possibly, perchance, maybe the guy she thought of every waking hour of her life, whom she was for some inexplicable reason not thinking of now, maybe, just maybe, this guy named _Sasuke_? And he did not skulk! That was a careless _saunter_.

"And that hairstyle…Shikamaru, you really need to condition your hair, your fringe is sticking all over the place. Are you trying to look like Kiba?"

Shikamaru almost fell down. Kiba now? What the hell? This was getting way out of hand.

He sighed. "This is way too troublesome," he muttered. He handed her apple back to her and walked off. He wondered if he would be able to move quickly enough to get home and barricade himself in before Chouji could catch up.

"Hey, Shikamaru!"

No luck, Shikamaru thought wryly. He sighed as Chouji caught up with him, somehow managing to wear an enormous grin while his mouth was stuffed full with chips.

"Chouji, I hate you," Shikamaru muttered tersely. "If it wasn't so troublesome, I would chop you up into a many tiny pieces and then chop you up into many more tiny pieces and then chop you into many, _many _more tiny pieces and –"

"Okay, okay, I get the point," Chouji said, but it seemed he was grinning even more widely, if that was possible. "You really shouldn't have just walked off like that just now, Ino looked like she was going to do something really dangerous, like hack the apple you gave her to bits and then stomp all over it."

Shikamaru scowled at Chouji. "You know she said I was acting like Shino? And that my hair was like Kiba?"

"Hey look, this wouldn't have happened if you'd actually used some sense!" Chouji protested.

If looks could kill, oh he would have zapped Chouji into many tiny pieces and then even more tiny pieces and then even _more_ tiny pieces and –

"Looks _can't_ kill, Shikamaru, so you can quit glaring at me like that," Chouji said. "Listen, when I said to emulate Sasuke, I didn't mean you had to act like a carbon copy of him! Calling Ino a mindless fangirl…"

Here Chouji broke off into laughter for the next five minutes while Shikamaru glowered, beginning to feel…well, like maybe he had an IQ of 20 rather than 200.

"Oh gosh, that was the funniest moment of my life!" Chouji gasped out between guffaws.

"Let up, already," Shikamaru said irritably. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Okay, moving on," Choujii said, having finally controlled his laughter. "Shikamaru, you are _hopeless_ when it comes to love."

"Oh, gee, thanks for pointing out the obvious, Chouji," Shikamaru said sarcastically. "You notice my original plan was to just _not do anything_?"

Chouji ignored the comment. "That's quite alright though, at least now you have some experience. Remember that you're Shikamaru acting like Sasuke, and not Sasuke himself, so uh, no more mindless fangirl."

At this point, Chouji broke out laughing _once again_ while Shikamaru decided that maybe his IQ was more around the regions of 2.

"Okay, fine, I realise I overdid it. Now that we've figured out this plan isn't going to work, why don't we just go back to my house and play shougi?" Shikamaru said.

"Goodness, no! Shikamaru, you can't give up so easily because of one setback! We just need to refine things a little." Chouji said adamantly. "Now let's go and find your Sasuke clothes!"

"Where?" Shikamaru couldn't help but ask curiously as Chouji steered him along by his arm.

"My house. I have some clothes of that type," Chouji said cheerfully.

Shikamaru blinked. "Um, Chouji, aren't you at least a good three sizes larger than me?"

"Oh, don't worry," Chouji said languidly. "Those were from when I was eight or so."

"Oh," Shikamaru said.

Shikamaru pondered in silence for a while.

"By the way, you're a really bad hairstylist."

"Oh, come on! This is totally a case of a bad workman blaming his tools. We'll get you conditioner."

--

Shikamaru stared. Okay, the black shirt and white shorts were perfectly average, but…

"Bandages?" Shikamaru asked incredulous. "What are those for? And what are you _doing_ to them?"

Chouji paused from unrolling the bandages into a pail of black paint. "Oh, I couldn't find those black strappy things that Sasuke wears, so we'll just have to make do."

"But bandages?" Shikamaru sounded disbelieving. "I'm going to look like a masochist!"

"Isn't Sasuke one?" Chouji asked, lifting up the now-black bandages with pegs and laying them on sheets of paper to dry. "Come help me, will you?"

"How would you even know?" Shikamaru asked in annoyance as he stooped beside Chouji and helped lift out the dripping bandages and arranging them on the floor.

"He's so brooding and antisocial, he must be," Chouji said decisively.

"Um, okay…" Shikamaru said. There was really no point in telling Chouji the problems with his logic, since he probably wouldn't listen. Not to mention Shikamaru was getting a little suspicious of his own wits since he had totally failed at 'Sasuke-ing' Ino.

Having taken out the last of the bandages, Chouji stood up and grinned exuberantly at Shikamaru.

"Okay, while we're waiting for the bandages to dry, let's move on to the next phase!" Chouji said, opening the door and beckoning Shikamaru out.

"What, we have to move again?"

"Of course!"

"Why couldn't we have had a more sedentary plan?" Shikamaru complained, getting to his feet and trudging after Chouji. "What are we doing now?"

"We're going to break into Sasuke's house!" Chouji said brightly…maybe a little too brightly.

Shikamaru almost walked into the wall instead of out the door. "Did you just _say_ that?"

"We have to break into Sasuke's house!"

Shikamaru stared. "I didn't hear you say that," Shikamaru said decisively, walking into the wall. Repeatedly.

"Hey hey, what are you doing!" Chouji said in consternation, pulling Shikamaru away from his self-destruction.

"Waking myself up, obviously," Shikamaru said seriously. "This has got to be a nightmare. A very bad one, I might add. And troublesome."

"Oh, come on!" Chouji said. "It's not all that bad breaking into someone's house!"

"Chouji, it's a criminal offence. Which part of that don't you get?" Shikamaru asked.

"Hey, this is important for our plan."

"In what way, exactly?"

"Oh, many. For one, we need to steal, uh, borrow some of Sasuke's conditioner."

Shikamaru stared. "Sasuke keeps conditioner?" He asked in amazement.

"Well, obviously he must!" Chouji said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "How else would he keep his hair so sleek and healthy? I mean, didn't you see the time when he popped up just in time for the Gaara fight during the chuunin exams, and his bangs were longer than usual? It was like he was purposely trying to mislead us into thinking he'd been practising so hard he didn't even have time to visit the barber, but he didn't fool me!"

"Huh?" Shikamaru said.

"Didn't you notice? His bangs were all shiny and bouncy and flying about dramatically when the wind blew! Only conditioner could have kept his hair in such perfect condition!" Chouji finished conclusively.

Shikamaru just stared blankly.

"And we have to redecorate your room to look like his!" Chouji added.

"But wait, I thought we should only imitate _some_ aspects of Sasuke that Ino liked," Shikamaru said slowly, still trying to process Sasuke + Shiny bouncy hair = Conditioner.

"Of course Ino will love how Sasuke styles his room!" Chouji said, sounding scandalised. "Ino loves _everything_ about Sasuke."

"But what you said just now…" Shikamaru's mind was floundering.

"Oh well, the mind of a woman is very confusing," Chouji said wisely, nodding. "Do not fear though, I am here to help you along your perilous quest!"

"No wait," Shikamaru tried to say, but was interrupted by Chouji.

"Come on, Shikamaru!" Chouji cheered. "We're doing this all for Ino!"

Before Shikamaru could even decide that the sentence didn't make any sense whatever, he was bodily dragged away from his beloved wall and out of Chouji's house to continue to wreck mayhem on his own life.

Maybe he was a masochist after all.

**-to be continued-**

Thanks for all the encouraging feedback, but I'm sorry this chapter was rather bland and disappointing. I'll try to improve the next chapter. Comments are always welcome. :)

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&SnoOza


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